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Comment by glup | Hacker News Reader

Besides the author’s v points about the poor working conditions, I was struck by the points about transit costs. I am curious how much of the current labor situation in the US can be explained by the combination of 1) geographic wealth segregation —- richer consumers clustering together while generally poorer service workers have to live far away —- and 2) high gas prices / underdeveloped public transit. At some point as both of these factors increase, there should be a big drop off in available workers. Is this consistent with the pattern we are seeing?

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It's not even just lower class workers. Taking public transit to my FAANG job each day would be ~$20 total and be ~2hrs of commuting each day. That comes out to ~5k/year in commuting costs and about 65 workdays in hours wasted on trains and subways.

I can eat this cost but I'd feel extremely bad for someone who doesn't get paid as much as I do who had to do this kind of commuting (which MANY people do daily).

> ~5k/year in commuting costs and about 65 workdays in hours wasted on trains and subways

Welcome to London.

There's a saying I like, "A rich country isn't one where the poor can afford cars. It's one where the rich take public transportation"

So, Tokyo.

Basically cars are a huge relative cost for the working class. With our land use and transportation policies we have created a world where the costs of getting around are so high that it can trap you in poverty for life. Sorry for the paywall but this was the quickest article I could find on the topic: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-seven-year-auto-loan-americ...

If you calculate the total cost of owning car(s) during your lifetime and consider alternative use such as interest bearing savings account some estimates have shown it costs you approx $1M during your life.

Public transit in Austin is terrible, and nonexistent in the suburbs. And there is a lot of wealth (and racial) housing segregation in Austin. I'd say you hit the nail on the head for Austin, at least. Speaking as someone who grew up in Austin poor without a car, and lived there until adulthood. Now work at a FAANG in a city much lower cost of living.

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